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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992748">rattlebone</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied'>cassandralied</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Body Horror, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Body Modification, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Possessive Behavior, but that's subject to change, listen it's not a healthy relationship idfk what to tell u, listen it's ur usual flesh stuff</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:34:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>604</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992748</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>i am the driver, i am the shadow, and i am the hearse.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>--<br/>Sebastian Adekoya remembers dying.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jared Hopworth/Sebastian Adekoya</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>72</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>rattlebone</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I do not consent for this story to be copied to any third-party app or site and only consent to it being posted on Archive of Our Own.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Sebastian Adekoya remembers dying.</p>
<p>He remembers the shadows that skulked long and <em>wrong</em>-shaped, and the shared terrorlonging that had gripped him like a vice until just moving, just <em>breathing </em>was a struggle.</p>
<p>He remembers locking up when the keys slipped from his sweaty hand and fell with a deafening crash onto the pavement below, and he remembers the many-jointed, fine-boned hand that swooped down and picked them up even though there was no one beside Sebastian on those steps seconds ago.</p>
<p>He would have stepped back if there was somewhere, <em>anywhere</em> to go. “Hello, Jared.”</p>
<p>The collage of blood and bone that had been his best friend somany lifetimes ago had smiled sharply, baring large teeth the size and shape of headstones. “Sebastian.”</p>
<p>He remembers the hot, aching feeling of having his skin somehow <em>liquefied</em>, and feeling like a plastic doll on sun-baked pavement as Jared hums tunelessly and arranges his boneless limbs to his contentment. It’s violating. It’s <em>humiliating</em>.</p>
<p>(he doesn’t remember if he’d fought back, before. he remembers every tooth in that stretched-out smile and he remembers the sound his ribs made when jared stretched them out and braided them into his hair but god help him, he doesn’t remember if he’d fought back.)</p>
<p>A large, heavy hand pats his head affectionately. “I’ll come back for you after,” Jared reassures him in a low rumble that sounds like stones being fed into a wood chipper. “And then I’ll show you what betrayal really feels like.”</p>
<p>That’s the moment when Sebastian would have screamed, if he’d still had a working jaw.</p>
<p> </p><hr/>
<p> </p>
<p>It might not have been so bad if he’d passed out from the pain, but he didn’t. He was awake when the coroners pronounced him dead, and he was awake when they wrote it off as a terrible car crash, and he was awake when they slid him into the dark in that little silver drawer in the morgue.</p>
<p>He doesn’t blame them. It’s hard to believe someone’s alive if they’re lying in the road like a punctured balloon. Sebastian has a hard time believing it himself.</p>
<p>But then those booming footsteps, a few sharply cut-off screams, and the sound of a key being turned, and Sebastian’s drawer is being slid out. His pupils don’t move, and he can only watch helplessly. Upside-down, Jared’s inhumanly wide smile looks more appropriate for the occasion. He places his patient carefully onto the autopsy table, as said patient tries not to shudder at the sick sound of his flesh loosely sliding and flopping.</p>
<p>Jared pats his head again, clumsy and comforting. “You doin’ okay?”</p>
<p><em>I’d be doing better if you had let me die,</em> Sebastian thinks, and horrifies himself because he hadn’t been wishing to be left alone, or for this whole thing to never had happened. He’d been wishing for death, for the end of this cycle.</p>
<p>Jared swings something heavy -a backpack, he thinks -onto the anatomy table and it clatters dully.</p>
<p>“Your bones,” he says shortly, by way of explanation, and then that giant hand is reaching into the hollow where Sebastian’s spine used to be and <em>replacing </em>it.</p>
<p>Sebastian whimpers weakly and once his ribs and lungs are returned, his chest can’t stop heaving.</p>
<p>“Going to give you higher cheekbones,” Jared says, like this is a fucking makeup tutorial. He considers. “D’you want wider eyes? I think I could do wider eyes.”</p>
<p>When Sebastian realizes he’s waiting for a reply, he shakes his head anxiously, his newly returned skull (<em>god, he hopes it’s </em>his<em> skull)</em> rattling slightly before settling into place.</p>
<p>Jared shrugs and begins inserting the first cheekbone.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>gay monster rarepairs are Too Quickly becoming my brand: the ongoing saga</p>
<p>alternate title: this fic may be born entirely out of my weird love for Life Dumb Book Smart Sebastian Adekoya and i am just gonna have to deal w that</p></blockquote></div></div>
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